The London Guantánamo has been campaigning since 2006 for the return of all British residents from the Guantánamo Bay prison camp, the release of all prisoners, the closure of this prison and other similar prisons and an end to the practice of extraordinary rendition. Human rights for all.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Documents from Guantánamo Bay declassified in September show that Shaker
Aamer is continuing to suffer abuse and was beaten up by guards as recently as
April this year for refusing to return to his cell, where he is held for up to
22 hours a day, after exercise. His lawyers have also confirmed that during
visits, he shows visible signs of having been beaten. Shaker Aamer further
claims that following visits from his lawyers, he is often beaten up by
soldiers. The Metropolitan police are continuing investigations into claims
that MI6 were present when he was tortured in Afghanistan, and interrogated him
in Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay.

The credibility of the military commission system at Guantánamo Bay was
struck a harsh blow when the conviction of Salim Hamdan, a former Yemeni
prisoner convicted in 2009, was overturned by a US federal appeals court. Mr
Hamdan, who had worked as a driver for Osama Bin Laden, was charged with
conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism. He was convicted of
the latter charges, but following his capture in Afghanistan in 2001, he had
already served his 66-month sentence by the time he was convicted and was
released and returned to Yemen in 2009. The court overturned the conviction as
the offence of “providing material support for terrorism” did not exist as a
war crime at the time the charges were brought. The 2006 Military Commissions
Act, creating military tribunals at Guantánamo, did not allow for Mr Hamdan to
be tried retrospectively for an offence that did not exist at the time. In
making his judgment, Judge Brett Kavanaugh said, “If the government wanted to
charge Hamdan with aiding and abetting terrorism or some other war crime that
was sufficiently rooted in the international law of war at the time of Hamdan's
conduct, it should have done so”. Salim Hamdan admitted to working for Osama
Bin Laden during his trial, but said that he was working for a wage and not to
wage war. The ruling raises questions about other convictions at Guantánamo
Bay. The day following this ruling, Australian David Hicks said that he would
be appealing his conviction too.

In mid-October, pre-trial hearings resumed in the case of five men
accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks in New York. This is the first time
they have appeared in court in over 5 months. All five men, including Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed, “disappeared” into secret CIA-run jails for several years
before being taken to Guantánamo Bay and face the death penalty if convicted.
The procedural issues discussed included secrecy during the hearings. At the
earliest, the actual trials are not expected to start before next summer,
almost 12 years after the attacks.

Wikileaks has started the release of more than 100 classified or
restricted files from the US Department of Defense relating to procedures on
prisoner handling in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay. These documents
can be accessed at: http://wikileaks.org/detaineepolicies/

In further pre-trial hearings in his case, Abd Al-Rahim Al-Nashiri,
accused of plotting an attack on a US warship in the Gulf of Aden in Yemen in
2000, threatened to boycott his trial due to mistreatment by US soldiers,
unnecessary aggression and the requirement that he wears shackles during the
hearing. Mr Al-Nashiri, who currently has a case at European Court of Human
Rights against Poland for its involvement in his torture there, where he was
allegedly waterboarded, faces the death penalty if convicted. He did not attend
the first day of the hearing. At the hearing, his lawyers urged the judge to
drop the charges against him and try him before a civil court, as Yemen and the
US were not engaged in hostilities at the time, meaning that his actions did
not constitute war crimes.

The first evidence has been filed by lawyers in the criminal case of
Abdel Hakim Belhaj and Sami Al-Saadi, who were rendered to Libya in 2004 with
the direct help of the UK intelligence services. Former foreign secretary Jack
Straw and Sir Mark Allen, a former senior MI6 officer, have been named in the
evidence as defendants. As well as describing the torture the two men and their
families faced, the documents state that both the government and the
intelligence services knew and were aware of the risk of torture.

Yunus Rahmatullah, a Pakistani prisoner held at Bagram Prison in
Afghanistan without charge or trial since 2004, following his arrest and handover
to the US military by the British army in Iraq, was subject to a British
Supreme Court ruling on 31 October. Lawyers for Mr Rahmatullah in the UK,
acting on behalf of his family, brought a case against the British government
to compel it to seek his release, as under a memorandum of understanding
between the US and UK (one of the documents recently released by Wikileaks), he
continued to remain under British control. The court of appeal had previously upheld
this - his right to habeas corpus - and ordered the government to seek his
immediate release. The US government refused to cooperate, as Pakistan has also
sought his release and he is a Pakistani national. Cleared for released more
than 2 years ago and one of several prisoners whose release Pakistan has
sought, it is unclear why Mr Rahmatullah continues to be held at Bagram. In its
ruling, the Supreme Court upheld his right to be released but agreed with the
government that it had no power to order this from the US and that it could
effectively do nothing. His lawyers, however, maintain that his handover was a
breach of the Geneva Conventions and that the UK is accused of war crimes in
his case, which is currently being investigated by the Metropolitan Police.

The LGC's 26th June
action to mark international day in support of victims of torture features on
the cover of a new report by the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture
Victims (IRCT). See also page 28 for further information about our "London
Says "No to Torture" action: http://www.irct.org/media-and-resources/library/26-june-global-report.aspxMany thanks to everyone who took part in
that action.

The London Guantánamo
Campaign is currently setting up its action to mark the 11th
anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo Bay on 11th January 2013.
Under the heading of “All Roads Lead to Guantánamo", we are planning a day
of action taking in actions outside embassies involved in the journey of
prisoners to Guantánamo, culminating in a vigil outside the US Embassy. We will
be holding a planning meeting on Saturday 10th November at 2-4pm in
the basement café in Westminster Central Hall. Please join us if you can. You
can also follow our progress and get involved via Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AllRoadsLeadToGuantanamo
and Twitter: @allroadsleadG11

Monday, October 01, 2012

Having previously refused to disclose the names of prisoners cleared for
release, the US Justice Department issued a list of 55 prisoners, including
Shaker Aamer and Ahmed Belbacha, on Friday 21 September. Although a partial list
of the 86 prisoners approved for transfer several years ago but who continue to
be held at Guantánamo Bay for a number of reasons, civil liberties
organisations in the US have hailed this unexpected disclosure as a positive
step. A previous request for disclosure was turned down in 2009. While the
release of this list does not equate to the release of the prisoners or that
the US has no objections to their release, it should facilitate the process of
campaigning for them. In the case of Shaker Aamer and Ahmed Belbacha, there are
clearly no reasons for them to remain at Guantánamo and the British government has
no reason not to seek their return.

On 8 September, 36-year old Yemeni prisoner Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif became
the ninth prisoner to die at Guantánamo Bay. The US military withheld his
identity for several days. He had travelled to Pakistan, where he was captured,
for medical treatment following a car accident that he could not afford in his
own country. Having pleaded his innocence all along, he won his habeas corpus
case before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals in July 2010; the judge ordered the
Obama administration to “take all necessary and appropriate diplomatic steps to
facilitate Latif's release forthwith” and stated that the US government had
failed to demonstrate any connections with Al Qaeda or its associates.
Following disclosures by Wikileaks, it later emerged that he had been cleared
for release by the US military as early as 2006. Letters to his lawyer
revealing his despair at his ongoing and apparently perpetual detention were
reported in the media after his death. The cause of death remains unknown.

Omar Khadr turned 26 in Guantánamo Bay on 19 September. Earlier in the
month, Minister of Public Security, Vic Toews, received the video materials and
psychiatric reports he had requested of the US government to decide whether to
seek Omar Khadr’s repatriation. The Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/09/12/omar-khadr-canada-return_n_1878041.html)
later reported that Omar Khadr would be returned to Canada before the US
elections. This was denied by the Canadian government, however in a final twist
in this protracted matter, Omar Khadr finally returned to Canada on Saturday 29
September. Upon his return he was taken to the Milhaven detention institute
where he remains in a cell for 23 hours a day and where he will serve out the
remaining 6 years of his 8 year sentence, having pleaded guilty to
the killing of an American soldier in a secret plea bargain before a military
tribunal at Guantánamo in 2010. However, Omar Khadr will be due to be
considered for parole in May 2013. Having acquiesced to one of its citizens
appearing before the much-criticised and flawed military tribunal regime at Guantánamo
in 2010, the Canadian government continues to insist that Omar Khadr is a “terrorist”,
even though he was not given a fair trial under any recognised definition of
the term. 166 prisoners remain at Guantánamo.

Extraordinary rendition:

The American human rights NGO, Human Rights Watch (HRW), has published a
major new report on rendition and Libya, claiming that the CIA tortured
opponents of the Gaddafi regime before rendering them to Libya where they faced
further abuse. Based on interviews with 14 survivors and MI6 and CIA documents
obtained by the NGO in Libya last year, the report states that the use of waterboarding
was more far extensive than claimed by the US government and that the scope of
the abuse carried out by the CIA itself under the guise of extraordinary
rendition is far broader than admitted. The report can be read at: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2012/09/05/delivered-enemy-hands

In early September, control of Bagram prison in Afghanistan was handed
over from the US to the Afghan authorities in a low-key ceremony; the US,
however, is maintaining control of hundreds of prisoners at the facility, now
known as the Parwan Detention Centre, whom it claims are “high-value prisoners”,
including around 50 foreign nationals, such as Pakistani rendition victim Yunus
Rahmatullah. The US intends to hand control of all prison facilities and
prisoners to the Afghan authorities by 2014. The decision to maintain control
over prisoners has angered the Afghan authorities and the actual terms of the
handover are unclear. More than 3000 prisoners are currently held at Bagram
without trial or charge. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19539412

The British government’s proposals to prevent civil cases concerning
torture claims coming to court through the use of secret courts have been condemned
by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Prof. Juan Mendez, in a talk he gave
in London, stating that this “hampers the ability to deal effectively with torture”. These measures, currently proposed in the
Justice and Security Bill would prevent cases seeking disclosure of the government’s
involvement in extraordinary rendition and torture abroad, such as the Binyam
Mohamed case and the case brought by former Guantánamo prisoners, being heard
in open court, effectively denying justice for torture victims and immunity for
state agents potentially involved in crimes against humanity.

On 11 September, members of the European Parliament (MEPs) voted
unanimously to back a new report by parliamentarians, calling for EU members to
investigate allegations of complicity in extraordinary rendition and for member
states to be held accountable. The report and the parliament called on
Lithuania, Poland and Romania to reopen independent investigations into their
collusion through hosting torture facilities. The report criticised the current
Polish criminal investigation for its lack of transparency. French Green MEP Hélène
Flautre called on EU states to “"openly acknowledge that these abuses took
place and take measures to address them." British Liberal Democrat MEP
Sarah Ludford called on the EU to “have the guts and self-respect to enforce
accountability for its own members' involvement in human rights abuses”. The report
is non-binding and opposition MEPs accused the report of being based on allegations.

The Italian Court of Cassation, the highest criminal court in the
country, upheld the convictions of 23 Americans tried in absentia of
involvement in the abduction and rendition to torture of Egyptian imam Osama
Mustafa Nasr in Milan in 2003. With the help of two Italian intelligence
agents, he was taken to a Milan airport and then rendered to torture in Egypt
via a NATO base in Germany. Released four years later, he claimed he had been
tortured. Following a 3-year trial, the 23 Americans, 22 of whom were held by
the court to be CIA agents, were convicted and given 7-9 year sentences. The
court also ordered damaged be paid to the victim and his family. The Italian
government is now likely to seek the retrial of the two Italians involved and
the extradition of the Americans, who face arrest if travelling in Europe. This
decision is the final ruling in the first ever court case concerning
extraordinary rendition. A lawyer for the Americans accused the decision of
undermining diplomatic immunity.

The September “Shut
Down Guantánamo!” demonstration was held on 6th September and was
attended by 10 people. The October demonstration will be held on Thursday 4 October
at 12-1pm outside the US Embassy and 1.15-2.15pm outside Speaker’s Corner, Hyde
Park (opposite Marble Arch). http://www.facebook.com/events/568546839838264/

The London Guantánamo
Campaign is currently in the process of setting up its action to mark the 11th
anniversary of the opening of the current incarnation of Guantánamo Bay as a
prison camp in January 2013. Under the heading of “All Roads Lead to Guantánamo",
we are planning a day of action taking in actions outside embassies involved in
the journey of prisoners to Guantánamo, culminating in a vigil outside the US
Embassy. Please get involved and help us to plan and carry out the action on
the day, Friday 11th January 2013. You can follow our progress and
get involved via Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AllRoadsLeadToGuantanamo?fref=ts
and Twitter: @allroadsleadG11

Take action!

We hold a regular monthly demonstration calling for the closure of Guantánamo Bay. Our March demonstration is on Thursday 8 March at 12-2pm outside the US Embassy, 33 Nine Elms Ln, London SW11 7US: https://www.facebook.com/events/975903689224552/

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About Me

The London Guantánamo Campaign has been campaigning since 2006 for the return of all British residents from the Guantánamo Bay prison camp, the release of all prisoners, the closure of this prison and other similar prisons and an end to the practice of extraordinary rendition. Also on Facebook and Twitter.